Thursday, March 30, 2017

3/13: The bald
eagle pair that nests across the Manitowish River from our house began
incubating eggs today. The activity around the nest now involves an eagle
flying in and settling down into the nest, while another one emerges from lower
in the nest and flies off. Bald eagles share the incubation of their eggs, so
this trading of tasks is regular throughout the day. Incubation typically lasts
around 30 days, so we expect to see the activity around the nest change again
around April 13 when they will then be tasked with feeding the chick or chicks.
This is, by the way, an early date for nesting – the average date is closer to
April 1. Bob Kovar in Manitowish Waters also reported that the eagle pair
nesting on his property began incubating the same day.

3/17: Our FOY
(First-Of-Year) red-winged blackbirds returned to our feeders in Manitowish, as
did an American tree sparrow.

3/25: Sharon
Lintereur in Lake Tomahawk saw movement in their owl nesting box, and it turns
out that for the second consecutive year, a pair of barred owls are nesting
there. Barred owls nest most often in deciduous trees, primarily in cavities
formed by disease, broken branches, or cavities in the top of broken trees
(snags). However, they will use open stick nests built by hawks, crows, ravens,
or squirrels, too. They also readily take to nest boxes, as is the case at the
Lintereur home. Incubation is done solely by the female and is usually about a
month, with an average clutch size of 2 to 3 eggs. If more than 3 eggs are
laid, each on successive days, the youngest of the brood often is underweight
and weak, and may be eaten by its nestmates.

photo by Sharon Lintereur

3/25: Mary and I
spotted our FOY common goldeneyes, red-breasted mergansers, and common
mergansers in Marquette, MI, on Lake Superior.

3/27: Our FOY
common grackles appeared at our feeders in Manitowish.

On the Horizon

Numerous species of birds have
migrated into southern Wisconsin and most are poised to continue their flights
into the Northwoods as the weather warms. Keeping records on when various
species return is all part of phenology, or the study of the orderly timing and
progression of natural events. Others define it as the study of biological
cycles and seasonal rhythms. It’s nature’s calendar. I encourage you to keep a
calendar of your first sightings, from ice-off on your lake, to the first birds
and flowers, to various temperature and rainfall recordings. Relying on our
memories, at least for those of us without photographic memories, is a sure way
to ruin otherwise. Then pass on your records to the next person who will own
your home, so they know what to look for and when.

Five Drummers Drumming

Woodpeckers are beginning to drum
regularly on trees around our home, the males now establishing territories and
beginning to woo a mate. If you pay attention to the duration, speed, and volume
of the drumming, you can identify the species by the drum pattern. We only have
five common woodpeckers in our area – pileated, hairy, downy, northern flicker,
and yellow-bellied sapsucker – so it’s not too daunting. You may also hear
red-bellied woodpeckers which continue to slowly move north into the Lakeland
region, as well as red-headed woodpeckers which have become less common. And if
you are particularly blessed, you could hear a black-backed woodpecker. But we
are at the southern-most edge of their range, and they’re rare.

The drumming for territories and
mates is different from that of the arrhythmic tapping heard from woodpeckers
as they excavate nests and search for insects. The drumming from yellow-bellied
sapsuckers is an easy one to start with because it starts strong with several
relatively fast taps, then slows down, and finally fades out at the end. It can
be very irregular, often changing in successive drumrolls – you can think of it
as a Morse code: Tap-Tap-Tap…tap-tap-tap . . . tap . . . tap . . . tap.

The pileated is the power drummer of
the crew, pounding out a crescendo that is deep and resonant, lasting for three
seconds or more. Both genders drum, but the females less frequently. Famed
ornithologist George Sutton described the sound as a repeated sequence of “an
introductory, rapidly given ; then a pause, followed by three distinct blows;
another pause; and two concluding blows.” It’s the volume that gives this one
away without a doubt, and you can literally hear the hollowness of the tree.

pileated chicks in nesting cavity

Things get a little dicier now in
identifying the drumming patterns. The drumming of northern flickers has been
described as “a miniature pneumatic drill,” produced by even, rapid blows. The
drum roll only averages a little more than a second long, but contains 25 beats
in a roll. Like many woodpeckers, flickers will often drum on a metal surface.
One flicker in Wyoming beat on the cowling of an abandoned farm tractor and
could be heard almost a half-mile away.

The hairy woodpecker drums at a
relatively steady rate, but more rapidly and with longer pauses than the downy
woodpecker. Its drumroll lasts about a second and has 26 beats – it goes by so
fast that you can’t pick out the individual taps – whereas a downy’s drumroll
lasts three-quarters of a second and averages 13 beats. Here you can just pick
out each tap.

The
downy also loves to drum more, offering 9 to 16 drumrolls a minute versus the
less enthusiastic hairy which only drums 4 to 9 times a minute.

Both
sexes drum in all these species for a variety of reasons:

1.To
defend a territory

2.As
part of a courtship

3.To
solicit copulation

4.To
summon a mate from distance away

5.To
communicate their location to a mate or in response to a nest intruder

6.Or
for reasons no one will ever know

Drumming does occur year-round in
woodpeckers, but it’s much more intensive in spring. While species
identification from drumming can be done with practice, if I had a nickel for
every misidentification I’ve made of birds, I’d be a wealthy man.

Saw-whet Owls Calling

I’ve yet to hear a saw-whet owl “singing,”
but now is the time to go out after dark and listen for their monotonous
tooting. While saw-whets produce a series of different calls, the one most
often heard is the “advertising call,”
which is an endless loop of whistled “toots” on a constant pitch. The call
comes at a rate of about two per second and sounds, and when researchers say
it’s monotonous, they really mean monotonous – the song can literally go on for
an hour or more.

saw-whet owl range map

Celestial Events

Jupiter will be at its closest to
the Earth on 4/7 and brighter than at any other time this year, and is also
visible all night. You should be able to see Jupiter’s four moons with a good
pair of binoculars. If you can’t, this is a good excuse to buy that spotting
scope you’ve always wanted – see www.eagleoptics.com. The moons are often called Galilean
moons for Galileo who discovered them in 1610.

Galileo was employed by Cosimo de’
Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. In seeking further patronage from this
wealthy family, he used the discovery of the moons to name them the “Medician
Stars” after the Medici Clan. He wrote a dedication letter to the Duke in which
he said, “Scarcely have the immortal graces of your soul begun to shine forth
on earth than bright stars offer themselves in the heaven which like tongues
will speak of and celebrate your most excellent virtues for all time. Behold,
therefore, four stars reserved for your illustrious name . . .” It occurs to me
this practice continues in our time, but is used to gain money by naming
stadiums after corporations, not moons after Dukes.

On
4/10, look for Jupiter in the southeast just two degrees below the nearly full
moon. Full moon occurs the next day, 4/11.

For
planet viewing in April, look after dusk for Mars very low in the western
twilight – it’s lost by late-month. Jupiter is very bright in the southeast.
Before dawn, look for Venus very low in the eastern twilight and climbing. Look
also for Saturn in the south (Saturn rises after 1 a.m. in the ESE if you are
wandering around at that hour). Saturn’s rings are tilted at nearly 27 degrees
from edge-on.

April 12 marks the anniversary of
the first human in space – Yuri Gagarin in 1961 from Russia – when the race for
space really heated up.

Thought for the Week

“Wisdom
grows as a river grows, from the accumulation of many small things.” Kathleen
Dean Moore

It’s that time of year when winter drags you
down like a waterlogged pair of coveralls, and seed catalogs become a source of
nearly biblical inspiration. So, what to plant? Cathy Logan-Weber sent me a
short list of native plants she is considering planting as part of a new
pollinator garden at the community center in Presque Isle.

She writes, “For spring, I will plant
nursery-purchased native bloodroot (Sanguinaria
canadensis) instead of crocus. I have blue eyed grass (Sisyrinchium montanum) to plant in place of non-native
forget-me-not. For summer bloom, I love the beautiful Joe-Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum) and the lavender
wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa).
One of the gardeners has started cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) by seed, and I will start anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) by seed. We will
encourage nearby common milkweed (Asclepias
syriaca) for the heavenly fragrance. For fall, I would consider false
sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoids)
and native goldenrods (Solidago speciosa).
Native grasses give shelter for insects, so I’ll try big and little bluestem (Andropogon gerardii and Schizachyrium scoparium) for fall and
winter interest.

She also
recommends reading The Midwestern Native
Garden: An Illustrated Guide by Adelman and Schwartz for its emphasis on
regionally native Midwestern plants as alternatives to popular non-native
flowers. The book offers additional notes on wildlife attracted to the
particular native plants, and the flowers are grouped by seasons.

For the many
reasons why we all should be planting native
species rather than non-natives, please also consider reading Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain
Wildlife with Native Plants by Douglas Tallamy.

Spring Migrations

If you want to follow the progress
of spring migration for species like ruby-throated hummingbirds and monarch
butterflies, go to www.learner.org/jnorth/ for maps showing up-to-date movements
for each species.

Sightings

I traveled to Madison last weekend
and saw many sandhill cranes in fields along Highway 51/39. Cranes come back
early to the Northwoods, sometimes as early as late March, so keep an eye out
for them in the coming weeks.

Waterfowl are returning to whatever
open water can be found, and often the first duck to return is the common
goldeneye. Bev Engstrom shared a beautiful close-up of one from 3/3.

common goldeneye photo by Bev Engstrom

Trumpeter
swans continue to return to our area. Sharon Lintereur sent a fine photograph
on 3/4 of three trumpeters on the Wisconsin River off Hwy. D near Lake
Tomahawk.

Once again, a state
sandhill crane hunt is being put to a vote. On Monday, April 10, the
Wisconsin Conservation Congress will hold hearings in each county to discuss a
multitude of DNR-related conservation issues, one of which is whether to open a
hunting season on sandhill cranes in Wisconsin.

The issues/concerns that I see are the
following:

First, twenty-five percent
of the world’s wild and federally endangered whooping cranes now summer in
Wisconsin. Many people are concerned that whooping cranes could be accidentally
mistaken for sandhill cranes during a legal hunt in poor light or bad weather
conditions. In these conditions, or conversely in very bright light, the
silhouette of a whooping crane is nearly identical to that of a sandhill
crane. Whooping cranes also frequently associate in the same flocks with
sandhill cranes, while young whooping cranes, which have some brown plumage,
can also be mistaken for sandhill cranes.

Second, while a total of 15 states have
hunting seasons for sandhill cranes, all of these states except for two harvest
from the most abundant regional populations – the Mid-Continent population and
the Rocky Mountain population. Both of these populations are made up of lesser
sandhill cranes, not greater sandhill cranes, which are the only cranes found
in Wisconsin. The total Eastern Population of the greater sandhill crane,
including the greater sandhill cranes in Wisconsin, is estimated to be between
60,000 and 70,000 individuals. The Mid-Continent Population of least sandhills has
a population estimate between 500,000 and 600,000 individuals.

Third,
it’s true that sandhill cranes cause
agricultural damage, primarily to field corn and potatoes, and it’s a
legitimate problem. Currently, shooting of sandhill cranes is granted to
farmers with demonstrated crop damage via agricultural damage shooting permits.
These permits are typically issued in the spring and early summer, when crop
damage is most likely. Although some proponents of a sandhill crane hunt have
suggested that a fall harvest might provide a partial solution to the crop
damage issue, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the
International Crane Foundation have determined that even a carefully regulated
autumn hunt would not be an effective deterrent to cranes causing spring crop
damage.

Further, researchers have
been investigating non-lethal methods to reduce agricultural damage by sandhill
cranes and have found one method that works – a chemical repellant known as
Avipel® which contains a naturally produced biochemical
found in some plants. Corn seeds treated with this compound are unpalatable to
cranes. When cranes first encounter Avipel-treated seeds, they learn that all
germinating seeds have been treated. Cranes
then move on to other food items, such as soil insects, earthworms,
and waste grain, but remain in the corn field.

So, as
with most management issues, there’s a cost/benefit analysis that needs to be
done. Wisconsin’s current population of 14,000 sandhill cranes has grown from
an estimated 25 in the 1930s because of protections from hunting. And for me,
while a closely monitored, low quota hunt could potentially be sustainable, the
gain for the few hunters who would get permits doesn’t begin to equal the risks
to the endangered whooping crane population. Nor, I would argue, is there any
sport in shooting a crane standing in a field, or flying low and slow overhead
, neck outstretched in all of its beauty.

Early
Spring for Us?

For the entire continental United States,
February 2017 was the second warmest on record since climate tracking started
in 1895, and mean temperatures were especially high east of the Rockies: as
much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. Overall, the country recorded its
6th-warmest winter. Sixteen states experienced their warmest February ever recorded.
The average U.S. temperature last month climbed 7.3 degrees above average (NOAA’s
National Centers for Environmental Information). Cities and towns across the
nation tallied 11,743 record highs compared to 418 record lows in February

More regionally, the ice went off Lake
Mendota in Madison on March 7. This date is tied with the second earliest
ice-off in recorded history which spans from 1855. It is nearly a month earlier
than the median ice-off date of April 4th.

The first day of spring arrives March 20. But
spring tree leaves arrived in mid-January in some parts of the South, and spring
has since spread northward like a wave. The attached maps, one of January and
one of February, plot the date of “first leaf,” a temperature-based calculation
of when vegetation that has been dormant starts to show signs of life. This
year, with the exception of a few small areas, spring has arrived much earlier
than the 30-year average. The light green on the maps represents the 30-year
average, and the dark green shows this year.

Whether spring will arrive early in our area
is a question we’ll have to wait a month or

more to answer.

Celestial
Events

The official spring
(vernal) equinox occurs on 3/20, but in the Lakeland area, we’ll achieve equal
lengths of day and night today, 3/17. This will be the first day since 9/24
when the day was longer than the night.

Eliminate
EPA?

I avoid politics in
this column, but clean air and clean water really aren’t political – they’re a
fundamental right for all life. I was born in Gary, Indiana, and raised in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (I fell in love with a Wisconsin girl when I was 20 –
a blessing!). My father worked for U.S. Steel, and we all knew, knew in every
sensory way possible, what polluted rivers looked and smelled like, and what
polluted air smelled and tasted like, even felt like when you could wipe black
particulate matter off your windows. My father knew where to park his car near
one of the steel mills based on which way the wind was blowing that day – park
it in the wrong lot, and the paint on your car would be pitted by the end of
the day. Drive into a tunnel in Pittsburgh and get caught in a traffic jam, and
honest to God, you thought you might die from the fumes. Head up to Lake Erie
to take a swim, or swim in the Allegheny River? You’d be literally out of your
mind.

My father knew all of this as a child, too.
He was raised in Cleveland not far from the Cuyahoga River, famed for catching
on fire. A Federal Water Pollution Control
Administration official told Time magazine in the 1960s, “The lower Cuyahoga has no visible signs of life, not even low forms
such as leeches and sludge worms that usually thrive on wastes.”

So, when folks say let’s scuttle the EPA, I
am literally stunned. I don’t have any “good old days” fantasy about an
unregulated natural world. The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the
Endangered Species Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act to control hazardous
chemicals, the “Superfund” Act enacted after the events at Love Canal, on and
on. These were moments of celebration, of wisdom, of moral elevation and
justice.

Most folks don’t know what the EPA actually
does, so here’s a very brief summary: Permit mines, industries, pipelines,
chemical plants via environmental impact statements; monitor facilities that
pose environmental risks like all of the above; clean-up the sites where
corporations cut and run – as of 2014, there were 1322 Superfund sites with 53
additional proposed sites (55 Superfund sites are currently being cleaned up in
Wisconsin); evaluate the safety of chemicals in food, cleaning compounds,
pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, paints, et al – each year, 2,000 new
chemicals come on the market; regulate, limit, and monitor air pollution from
engines, coal-fired generating plants, chemical plants, et al; set minimum
water quality standards and enforce them from point and non-point sources
including industries, sewage treatment plants, CAFOs, mines, et al; develop
standards for nuclear waste disposal and protect human health from exposure to
harmful radiation at health facilities, military operations, industrial sites,
et al.

And, importantly, it’s Congress that dictates
EPA’s responsibility in all of these federal acts. They wrote them – not the
EPA. If any of these acts are too burdensome in some egregious manner, Congress
should amend them appropriately after full public review. But to throw this
baby out with the bath water? We’d be turning back the clock to the 1950s, and
there’s a whole lot of us who remember in our very blood what that was like.